


Girls of Fury

by houdini74



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Friendship, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 02:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houdini74/pseuds/houdini74
Summary: Stevie is keeping a secret and David definitely has no interest in knowing what it is.





	Girls of Fury

“She’s hiding something from me, I can just feel it.” David puts his hands on his hips and glares at Patrick from across the store. “This had better not be another Jake situation.”

“David.” Patrick comes out from behind the counter and puts his hands on David’s shoulders. “Isn’t Stevie allowed to have a secret?”

“No. I mean, yes.” David trails off, his face scrunches up in annoyance and despite Patrick’s grip on his shoulders, he’s still managing to gesture dramatically with his hands.

“As long as we don’t get any more invitations to gallop around in the woods, I think Stevie deserves her privacy.” He knows David is right. Stevie has been acting secretive lately. But she’s a grown woman who is allowed to do things that David doesn’t know about. He squeezes David’s shoulders, digging his fingers gently into the back of his neck, working at David’s tense muscles. David sighs for a minute, rolling his shoulders before gesturing again.

“It’s just…”

“It’s just that she’s your best friend and she mysteriously wasn’t home last night and you have the curiosity and patience of a six year old?”

“I’ll have you know that I have the patience of an eight year old.” 

It sneaks up on him, the way it often does, how much he loves David. Still, opportunities to well and truly rile him up don’t come up as often as they used to. David is more immune to his teasing now; he reacts because it’s a thing they do, the way they communicate, so a real chance to push David’s buttons is too good to pass up.

“You don’t suppose she’s joined Bob’s new barbershop quartet? I heard he was looking for members.”

David is so horrified by the notion that he pushes free of Patrick’s hands so he can pace around the store. Patrick waits until he completes a lap of the display table before stopping him and sliding his arms around his waist.

“Stevie will tell you when she’s ready.”

***

The next morning, Patrick purposefully arrives twenty minutes early to pick David up at the motel. He parks in front of the office and picks up the bottle of wine from the front seat before slipping inside the office door. As he’d hoped at this hour of the morning, Stevie is alone behind the desk. He puts the wine on the desk, but keeps his hand around the neck of the bottle. 

“Good morning, Patrick. How lovely to see you.” Stevie is suspicious, her eyes narrowed. He stares at her, head tilted to one side.

Finally, after an intensely long pause, she breaks. “What?”

“You’re torturing David and I want in on it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stares at her again, until she squirms on her stool. It’s the same technique he uses every day against David. Stevie’s a bit harder to crack, but not as hard as he’d expected. Or maybe she wants to tell him.

“Fine.” Stevie pulls her phone out of her pocket and pulls up something on the screen. Before she lets him see it, she gives him a direct look. “But here’s the deal. This is a secret until I say so. There won’t be any pillow talk about ‘David, you’re so sexy, let me tell you what Stevie is up to.’”

“Since we have never once talked about you in bed I can guarantee those words will never leave my lips.” He’s sure that she doesn’t think he and David talk about her in bed. He’s pretty sure.

“And there better not be any ‘David’s the love of my life, we have no secrets’ crap, either.” She gives him a flat stare that makes him squirm this time. Facing Stevie’s wrath is not an experience he wants to repeat.

“I think I’ve shown I can keep secrets.” That he can joke about it now is a sign of growth...or something. Stupidity, maybe.

Stevie eyes him carefully. “Yeah, you have.”

“It’s a deal.” He slides the wine over the desk to her and she shows him her phone. “Oh, wow. David’s going to lose his mind.”

She grins, amusement flashing in her eyes. “I know.”

He grins back at her and turns to leave the office. He doesn’t want to stay too long in case David discovers he’s with Stevie and gets suspicious. He pauses, his hand on the doorknob. “By the way, you know I’m not into women, but you look good. Like, really, really good.” He swears she almost blushes, but then her book is back up, covering most of her face.

“Get out of here.”

***

“Maybe she joined Ray’s book club. He was asking me about it yesterday.” Across the room, David sets the new containers of moisturizer down on the shelf with a bit more force than is required and refuses to respond. As he’d hoped, David has been incapable of letting go of his curiosity about Stevie’s secretive behavior. Patrick has spent the day lobbing suggestions at him to see what will stick. 

“There a new bar in Elmdale, maybe she’s going to meet someone.”

“She would have told me. All of those are things she would have told me.” David arranges the jars very precisely, glaring at them as he does it.

Patrick grins to himself, David is so lost in his contemplation of what Stevie is up to that he hasn’t noticed how much Patrick is enjoying himself. “Maybe she’s going to sell the motel?”

“What!”

For a moment, Patrick thinks he’s gone too far. His goal is to tease David, not to cause him actual distress. “No, that can’t be it, I’m sure…” But David is already dismissing the idea.

“No, my dad would know and he’s physically incapable of keeping a secret. Christina Aguilera was supposed to perform for Alexis’s sweet sixteen and he accidentally sent everyone on the guest list her flight details.”

David takes the empty box into the back room and Patrick pulls out his phone to text Stevie.

**Patrick:** I almost had him on the motel sale, but no luck  
**Stevie:** OK, see you soon, I need some some things

He and David are both helping customers when Stevie comes in half an hour later. She sets the apples she’s selected on the front counter and waits for David to finish ringing up the other customer. Patrick tries to keep his focus on the woman who has questions about hand cream, but he can’t keep from glancing over at them.

David looks at the apples and back at Stevie. “That will be fifty dollars.” His left hand is on his hip as his right gestures at the bag of fruit. 

“Are these the last apples in the country?” 

“The apples are five dollars. There’s a forty-five dollar keeping-secrets-from-your-friends surcharge.” 

Patrick smothers a laugh and assures his customer that the hand cream is made from all natural ingredients.

“What makes you think I have a secret?” 

“You’ve been acting weird for the past week and you weren’t home when I came to see you last night.”

“I was out. And, if I had a secret, you wouldn’t know about it.” 

“Out where?” David lifts his chin at her, the challenge evident.

“Just out.”

Thankfully, the woman with the hand cream has run out of questions. Patrick makes his way to the front of the store where he takes Stevie’s five dollars for the apples. He rubs David’s shoulder and winks at Stevie.

“I should go. Me and my secret are gonna go home and do secret things.” Stevie picks up the apples and heads for the door.

“You have to tell me eventually!”

Stevie pauses by the open door. “Do I, though?”

He tries not to laugh. David looks more outraged than he did on the day that one of their suppliers mixed up their order and accidentally sent them neon pink and purple candles instead of the cream and ivory ones he’d ordered. As far as Patrick can tell, cream and ivory are the same color, although the other colors definitely stood out. Jocelyn liked them, though.

The woman with the hand cream has left, Patrick’s answers evidently not to her liking, and the store is empty. He slips his arms around David’s waist, turning him so that he’s trapped in the corner of the counter. He has to bite his lips together to keep from laughing at David’s annoyance at Stevie.

“She’s doing this on purpose.”

He kisses David quickly, just once, trying to tease away his attention. “I know.”

“It’s probably not even anything, she just likes to torment me.”

He kisses David again, a little longer this time. David’s still distracted, but his arms finally come up to rest on Patrick’s shoulders. “She’s terrible.” He kisses David a bit harder, his tongue teasing before he pulls back.

“Yeah…” David’s attention has fully shifted to him now, his dark eyes are interested in other things as they meet his. He presses David firmly against the counter, letting the kiss linger and build until neither of them are thinking about Stevie any more.

***

He’s closing out the till at the end of the day when David sets three bottles of wine on the counter beside him. 

“We’re going to Stevie’s tonight.” It’s not a question.

“And are you paying for that wine or are we bringing Stevie stolen property?”

David huffs at him. “She should have to pay for it.” Patrick laughs and adds the wine to David’s account. When David’s not looking, he texts Stevie to warn her that they’re on their way.

At Stevie’s, he sits on the couch while Stevie takes the bed, sitting cross-legged in the middle. David is poking around in the kitchen, pretending to look for the correct wine glass, but they all know he’s hoping to find evidence of Stevie’s secret. Patrick doesn’t know where Stevie has hidden her gear, but it’s out of sight.

He’s been to Stevie’s apartment dozens of times since the first night he and David spent here together, but the memories of that night still make him blush. He takes another swallow of wine, hoping to disguise the way his ears have gone slightly pink. Fortunately, Stevie is distracted by David, who has given up his ransacking of her kitchen to reluctantly sit beside him on the small sofa. He puts his arm around David’s shoulders and David instinctively moves closer so that they’re pressed together. Stevie makes a face, but she’s used to them now so it doesn’t even merit a comment.

David is staring fixedly at Stevie. “I’m so glad you were able to invite us over.”

“I didn’t invite you.”

“It’s what good friends do. Have drinks, talk about what’s happening in their lives, share intimate secrets.”

He looks at David in horror. He knows instantly that David has gone too far and now they’re both going to pay. Stevie smiles at them and it’s almost predatory.

“Intimate secrets?”

David realizes his mistake and starts to backtrack. “Regular secrets. Regular, everyday secrets.”

“Did you have intimate secrets that you wanted to share? After all, it’s what friends do.”

David looks at him for help but he just raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. David has opened this box, he can find a way to close it. Stevie’s eyes are fixed on David’s like a cat watching a mouse. After a long pause David looks away.

“Maybe you should keep your secrets to yourself.” The concession is begrudging and Stevie smiles broadly.

***

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“I’m sure.” He leans over to kiss David before they get out of the car. Stevie had texted him earlier that day with instructions to bring David to the Elmdale Arena that evening. It’s been a week since the night at Stevie’s and David hasn’t exactly given up on finding out her secret, but he mostly just mutters to Patrick about it. 

“It’s just that this looks like it might violate our ‘no sports activities without advance warning’ agreement.” Ostensibly, they’re here on a date but he’d known that the sight of the arena would make David complain.

“This is a special case. C’mon.” He gets out of the car and waits for David to join him, linking their hands together, smiling to himself as the gold rings on David’s left hand dig into his fingers.

The stands aren’t full, but there’s a decent crowd. He finds two seats a couple of rows back of the player benches. Despite the protective gear and makeup, he spots Stevie right away, one of a group of women on roller skates who are warming up, doing practice laps around the track. He looks over at David, but he hasn’t spotted her yet.

“What is this?” He can tell that David’s trying to decide if he should be horrified or not.

“Roller derby.”

“So they just skate around in circles?”

“Not exactly.” 

Stevie’s team is wearing black uniforms with bright red tights and helmets. Stevie has painted elaborate designs on her face, with thick black eyeliner and red lightning bolts down each cheek. She skates to a stop in front of the player’s bench and looks up at the crowd. David’s body stiffens beside him and Patrick knows that he’s seen her.

“Oh my god.”He grins at David’s reaction. David turns to him and his eyes narrow. “You knew about this.”

He shrugs, unable to contain his reaction, a smile stretches across his face.

“How long have you known about this?” David’s eyes are wide and accusing.

“A while.” 

“I can’t believe you.” David is trying to act angry, but a smile keeps flickering at the corners of his mouth. He looks back at Stevie. “She looks really hot.”

“Hey.” It’s a token protest, more to get a rise out of David than anything else. 

This time David is the one who shrugs, his smile growing a little bigger than before. “She does.”

“Yeah, she does.” 

Stevie turns back to the track and he can see the name ‘Stevie Thunder’ stitched onto the back of her jersey. 

An announcement crackles over the PA system. “Tonight, we have the Girls of Fury versus the Toxic Cherries. Blockers, to the line.”

Four players from the two teams assemble at the start line. He can see Stevie and one of the women from the other team, whose jersey reads ‘Sinderhella’ stand a little ways back from the others. The whistle blows and the group takes off, pushing and jostling for position with Stevie and Sinderhella trying to force their way through the crowd as the women from the opposing teams block and check them. It’s brutal mayhem and Patrick wishes for a second that he was out on the track.

Seconds later, Stevie takes a hard check and slides across the track into the edge of the crowd. David leaps to his feet, hands pressed to his mouth, but Stevie pops back up quickly and gets back into position. 

After multiple rounds of blocks and checks, during which Stevie goes down at least half a dozen more times, the match comes to an end. Stevie’s team, the Girls of Fury, have beaten the Toxic Cherries by a score of 151 to 144. He tugs David’s hand and they go over to congratulate her. At the bench, Stevie is bent over, her hands on her knees and he can see that she’s exhausted. Even though her makeup is smeared and sweat is running down her face, David lets go of Patrick’s hand to give her a hug. 

“You could have told me.”

Stevie downs an entire bottle of water and unclips her helmet, shaking her hair loose. “It was more fun this way.” 

***

David holds Stevie’s chin in one hand and he tilts her face to the light so that he can see the design he’s sketched onto her cheek. From what Patrick can see from his spot on David’s bed, he’s painted red and orange flames that stretch across the lower half of Stevie’s face. She’s wearing her roller derby uniform and it’s become a weekly ritual for her to stop by David’s room before her matches so that he can do her makeup. 

“Done.” David releases Stevie and she goes into the bathroom to see his handiwork. Patrick comes up behind David and puts his arms around him, resting his chin on his shoulder as David tidies up his makeup and brushes.

“You’re a good friend.” David squirms beneath him and Patrick knows he’s embarrassed and pleased.

“I could have been doing this all along if someone hadn’t been keeping secrets.” David raises his voice for the last few words to be sure that Stevie can hear him.

“Good friends let each other have secrets.” Stevie’s response leaves no doubt that she can hear them just fine. She stands in the doorway of the bathroom, the flames David has painted look astonishingly real. Her face softens, almost imperceptibly. “When they trust each other.”

Patrick’s eyes meet Stevie’s and he smiles. They’ve both kept secrets from David in the past, out of fear, out of good intentions, out of selfishness. Maybe Stevie knows exactly what she’s doing this time, as though she’s ratcheting down the seriousness, making room for David to trust her occasional need for privacy.

David rolls his eyes and grumbles playfully in response. “How would you know when you’ve never had one before?”

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write a Stevie does roller derby fic, because I totally think she would, but this turned into more of a fic about friendship. What can you do?


End file.
